"When I was here in 2007, if I knew how good that Obama guy was, I would have just not wasted my time... would have just joined up right then," Biden joked of his own failed presidential bid.

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The audience roared. "I should have known, you know," he added.

After taking a moment to condemn slayings in Binghamton, Biden quickly took up the role of cheerleader-in-chief for Obama's turnaround plan.

"The president and I, we're positive we know what's on your mind... I think we know what's keeping you up at night - the same thing that's keeping us up," Biden said.

He spoke of unemployment rates higher in the black community than the overall population, and of how minorities have been left out of an American "bargain" - when productivity rises, everyone who works to increase it should reap the benefits.

Biden also said the Obama administration's goal is to create jobs that aren't just "make-work" and can't be exported overseas.

"We were raised to know that a job is more than a paycheck," Biden said. "It's dignity. It's respect... Every American doesn't just deserve a job, but a good-paying job."

"We have to - for moral reasons, for practical reasons and for purely fiscal reasons - we've got to reform our health care system," he said.

It was a little over a year ago that Sharpton took Biden - who was then running for president - to task for saying candidate Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

"I think it's noteworthy that this is the first civil rights organization the administration has sent their top people to [and this is Biden's] first trip to New York as vice-president," Sharpton said.